What Is The Optimal Video Length?

Despite our position at the top of the planetary food chain, a 2015 study from Microsoft showed that the human attention span is actually shorter than that of a goldfish. It also showed that our attention span has decreased substantially from 12 seconds to around 8 between the years of 2008 and 2013.

1. What type of video content are you offering?

Marketing and advertising videos that are designed to engage potential customers should remain short but that doesn’t mean you should shy away from long-form videos that offer in-depth information to those who are interested.

An example might be an explainer video styled like a TED-Talk presentation or a comprehensive walkthrough of a product. If you want to engage people with intricate details then you’ll need to take your time and not rush your video.

2. How and where is the audience watching the video?

With an array of video platforms at our fingertips, you should consider the scenario in which your video will be viewed and the platform it could be viewed on.

4. What action do you want the viewer to take?

Depending on the intention behind your video, you should consider what you want the viewer to take away from your video.

If you’re marketing or advertising then this is often obvious: you want the viewer to click through to enquire, buy the product or consume your content.

Video Length and Engagement: The Data

As we’ve now looked at some general considerations for video creation, let’s dive into a video analytics survey performed by Wistia.

The below study was created to assess at which point people were more likely to stop watching the video.

From this simple graph, you can see that two minutes is the sweet spot that combines maximum video length with maximum engagement. After then, engagement does start to decline at a variable rate.

A drop in engagement can be a leading indicator for success

That sounds strange, right? Well let’s explain… If your call to actions (CTA’s) are located towards the middle or end of the video, then a large drop in engagement could be due to your audience simply responding to your desired action.

Whether you mentioned another video with an on-screen caption or asked users to visit your website, a drop in engagement must be taken with a pinch of salt and the larger context of where and why the drop in engagement occurred needs to be taken into consideration.

1. Videos up to two minutes are optimal in most situations

Engagement strongly declines after the 2 minute mark. The duration of any video up to 2 minute mark sees the strongest engagement %. That means it’s less important whether your video is 1.5 mins or 1.9 mins as long as it sits within the 0 – 2 minute range.

2. (2 to 3 minutes sees a significant decline in engagement)

The data shows that seconds after 2 minutes create sharp declines in engagement. Obviously, some videos cannot be 2 minutes or under but practically speaking, a short video of around 3 minutes should be cut down to 2 minutes if possible.

3. (6 to 12 minutes is a steady spot for engagement)

If your video is a long form content asset then the 6 to 12 minute length is optimal. Around here, the decline in engagement is pretty slow. The interesting thing here is that 6 minutes is more or less the same as 12 minutes in terms of the engagement % – so it’s recommended that you use these additional 6 minutes to further expand on your desired topic without sacrificing user engagement.

4. Over 12 minutes, engagement drops below 50%

There is something to be optimistic about here: 50-46% of people will continue viewing videos past the 15 minutes range. In the case of narrative-based videos or long tutorials, viewers expect this sort of length from a video.

5. Your Industry and company’s video content performance is unique

Despite being able to produce the above statistical data from an aggregate overview of videos, it’s important to remember that your industry, customer and their content needs will be unique. We recommend following the data above as a general rule of thumb but encourage you to use analytics for monitoring how your content is being received.

Separating your videos by topic category or format enables you to see which style of video your end user prefers. Also, you’ll want to compare channels such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, as every platform has its own preferences and optimal video content length for delighting your users.

Analytics platforms:

Remember to always set KPIs and use the data to continuously optimise your video content performance.

Conclusion

This data is particularly useful for those who are scrutinising the length of their advertising or marketing material. If you’re trying to cut down your video time to something extremely short like 30 seconds then relax and make the most of the 2 minutes available to you.

Producing anything beyond this point is risky unless you need a longer format for your video (and your viewers should understand that). For marketing and advertising, videos beyond the 12 minute mark are scarcely required and through the 6 minute to 12 mark still provide high engagement rates.

If you want to maximise your video content engagement it’s clear to see that 2 minutes is the optimal video length.